Phototour: Downtown Surrey’s separated bike lane

As we reported back in the summer, the City has been building its first physically-separated, on-street bike lane on 105A Ave in the Downtown. While the project appears to still need some finishing touches, the majority of the construction is done. Take a look at what they’ve built below!

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As far as a first attempt goes, it is a solid effort from the City. The quality of the finishes is impressive, however I’m disappointed at the lack of actual separation. Rather than have a continuous raised curb between the bike lane and car lane, they’ve opted to only install these near intersections, which effectively makes it a fancy looking painted line on the street in many spots. This has resulted in many cars parking in the bike lane. In addition, as of yet, there’s little attention paid to the crossing of intersections, one of the biggest failures that the City has throughout its entire network of bike lanes. Greater attention to these functional details would drastically improve the effectiveness of this route, and others, in the future.